American journalist working in Nigeria diagnosed with Ebola

Ashoka Mukpo, an American freelance cameraman working for NBC News is the fifth citizen of the United States and its first journalist known to have contracted the virus in West Africa. Mukpo, 33, has worked in Liberia for the past three years and has covered the recent Ebola outbreak for various U.S. media outlets. He was hired on Tuesday to serve as a second cameraman for NBC News chief medical editor and correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who has been with three other network employees on assignment. Mukpo, who came down with symptoms on Wednesday, will be flown the United States for treatment. Four other NBC News team members who have shown no signs of infection also will return to the United States to undergo a precautionary quarantine.

We observe the custom now, which is to not shake hands, to not embrace people, to wash our hands with diluted bleach water before we enter the hotel. We dip our feet in bleach solution.

Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC News chief medical editor

Meanwhile, in Dallas, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital is answering questions about how they let an Ebola-infected patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, go home instead of undergoing quarantine. Duncan had lied about not showing some signs of Ebola, and although he told nurses that he was in Africa for a four-week stretch, that information wasn’t passed along to the physicians due to a different workflow. Liberian authorities say they plan to prosecute Thomas for lying on a health assessment he filled out at the airport when leaving on Sept. 19.

World ebola